Smile for the Stars
by Dutchess Hyde
Summary: (Rewrite of collaboration with Blitzjewel.) Strength is a fickle thing; its definition varies from person to person. The real reason no one can be strong, Ada supposes, is because it doesn't exist. Strength is an imaginary word, used to describe someone who doesn't want to be hurt or has been hurt and wants to prevent it from happening again.


**A/N: So, I had collaborated with BlitzJewel for an Ada Wong story earlier in the year and I've decided to rewrite it to see if my writing had changed at all.**

**Disclaimer: *Whispers* Why would I even be here?**

Ada Wong is a selfish woman. Granted, all humans are conceited in some way or another. Ada is another story all together; her life is built on her selfish demeanor.A spy, a traitor, fuel to the fire, whatever you want to call Ada Wong, you can never call her strong.

Though that's hard to see through her stiff exterior, a cracking façade is always the hardest to identify. She smirks and scoffs like its nothing, but she has never smiled. Strength is a fickle thing; its definition varies from person to person. The real reason no one can be strong, Ada supposes, is because it doesn't exist. Strength is an imaginary word, used to describe someone who doesn't want to be hurt or has been hurt and wants to prevent it from happening again.

Ada has been hurt. More than enough times, the stings of slaps and screams are hardened scars, like a callous. So Ada became 'strong'. Nobody would hurt her if they feared she would harm them first.

So as she presses her back into the cold metal of the support beam, her glossed lips upturned in a smirk. The mission is quite simple, a mere vacation to her. She is to take down a small drug cartel, steal the merchandise and deliver it to her consumer. Mediocre at best, but Ada doesn't mind, she is being delightfully overpaid for it.

Her hand slid down to her belt as she glanced up at the support beam she had been previously leaning against, she squinted her flat hazel eyes up at the unfinished building. Out of all the better places they could've chosen they had picked the construction site for an in-progress corporation building. Ada mentally scoffed. They were obviously trying too hard.

Finally pressing a palm to the cool handle of the intricate grapple gun, she tugged it out of the plain black leather holster. Raising it in a familiar fashion she gently pressed a finger to the trigger. The hook silently whizzed through the air toward the third platform of the already towering building. Releasing the trigger, her booted feet lifted from the gravel as she propelled up in the same line as the hook.

Grabbing the edge surely with one hand, Ada flipped over, landing soundly on fresh-smelling plywood. She gripped the crossbow strapped to her lower back, pulling it out and unfolding it to the true size it possessed. Lifting the newly-attached scope to her cat-like eyes, she peered through, targeting the man seeming to initiate the deal.

She squeezed the trigger easily, willing herself to remember she didn't know this man and his life to stamp out the tiny morsel of guilt. Lowering her weapon Ada gave a curl of her lips at the unknowing men who were unaware of her arrow flying fluidly toward their leader.

With a plunk the man was on the gravel, blood pooling around him in a scarlet puddle. Ada smirked.

But so did the group of men standing in the scarlet mess.

With a quick glance, Ada watched as a man pulled the small remote from his trench coat, tapping a round button.

Her ears pricked as she picked up the sound of beeping. In one second Ada's mouth twisted in a grim frown as she sprinted toward the cliff of the platform. And Ada did what was not the most dangerous thing she had done in her career. She jumped off of a three story building, letting out a strangled gasp as she felt the impact and scorching heat hit her from behind.

They had planned this and Ada wanted to curse herself and the universe for her stupidity. Her 'consumer' must have actually been hired to take her out. It's not like Ada hadn't encountered this before, this had happened countless times before. It just hadn't happened in this form, this man was smart and Ada had completely underestimated him. The deal was sweet and he looked naïve and foolish.

With a sickening crunch, her body landed on the gritty path and her vision shook with a thousand different colors and blackness soon approached her mind. The blinding lights of the explosion looked like fireworks, and Ada's eyes shown with brief glimmer of admiration before they closed.

Only minutes passed before her hazel eyes snapped back open, followed by a grunt of pain. She shouldn't be alive and Ada knows this.

But she is selfish and wants to say goodbye to the stars.

Several cuts and scrapes littered her body, her shirt is more scarlet than usual and her back is burned severely. Her arm is broken and her shoulder dislocated along with many other bones, but that is not the worst part. Sticking out of her abdomen is a large shard of thick wood, the main cause for lightheadedness.

Ada barely registers this and glances around dully, from her own pool of blood to the other puddle created by her crossbow. Finally her gaze rested on the stars.

Because she is selfish and wants more of her hideous life, she almost calls for help, abruptly stopping herself. Who would help someone with no medical records? Ada wonders helplessly if people will forgive her, whether she is dead or not.

No one wants to die while knowing it's going to happen, everyone wants a peaceful death. Wanting to pass away in their sleep without the fear that Ada was regrettably experiencing at this very moment.

Her eyes fixed on the stars, Ada releases a breath. She wasn't star; she was more like a comet. There one moment and gone the next, not being noticed but still significant. Or at least she wants to think that.

Leon is a star. Jill Valentine is a star. Chris Redfield is a star. She is not. She secretly wishes she was a star.

So as Ada Wong takes her last breath, her lips upturn in a genuine smile at one thought. Live a selfish life, die a selfish death.

Three days later, after all the bodies and debris were cleaned from the scene four people were pronounced dead. Four thugs and an unidentified woman. Ada Wong was gone, but her crossbow lay buried under the dirt. A nonexistent tombstone for a nonexistent woman.


End file.
